The graphic you see above is my new business card, roughly life size, which is crawling out of my printer as I type these words. Cycle 61 Photography may not officially exist yet, but we do have business cards! Okay, I admit, in the grand scheme of things, this is pretty darn small news. However, it's a first for me, and even though it's made up on Office Depot's snap-apart clean edge card blanks on my inkjet printer at home, it is a real card. I am definitely not going to do it this way again, the time and ink I wasted getting the darn thing to line up right probably cost me more than professional printing, but at least I know that I have them available to hand out on Friday at the wedding.
Other options I looked at were any number of online printing places, which offered quality, customization, speed, and good prices (pick any two), and even better would have been MooCards through Flickr. The Moo Cards are very nicely done, bigger than regular business cards, and have excellent print quality, but they happen to ship from the U.K., so getting them here on Friday wasn't gonna happen.
I'm hiding this after the jump, so technically I admitted it but most of you won't get this far. The design above was made in Photoshop. My regular readers (Hi mom!) know that my copy of Photoshop isn't exactly, um, registered. Okay,okay, it's pirated. I've been using Lightroom for the last month, and have resolved that I won't use PS for professional work until I pay for a copy. Doing my business cards on it doesn't sit right with me. I'm saving my pennies for a Mac right now (see the little countdown thingy in the sidebar) and buying PS now would push that back quite a ways. I swear it's my next purchase after the iMac is safely parked on the desktop.
Oh, and Anna, the Mac decision is, of course, pending your approval. It's our tax refund.(I don't think she reads this, but better safe than sorry!)
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Ever closer to reality
3 comments:
I use Vistaprint for all my business cards - they offer "free cards" which technically are free (you just pay for the postage) but I would certainly recommend them. And if you order some business cards before you get your mac, the uploading process will go a lot smoother! (I'm a Mac user at work, and PC at home, so I get the best of both worlds).
Did you see this post about promo cards: http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/01/09/photographer-promo-cards/ ?
There's some great ideas to "reference/emulate" (~ahem~ copy)...
I've kept my own business card very simple - it's a tall black card (portrait orientation) with my name running across the middle in white, and "photography - design" just beneath. One straight narrow line of lime green.
The back is the same with the colours inverted, and my contact details at the bottom. Very simple, very straightforward.
What you don't say on a business card often speaks much louder than what you do say.
I think what I'm getting to is the following suggestion (and it's only a suggestion!)
Reduce the size of your font; make it simpler (Century Gothic?). And brighten the colours of the bridge just a touch.
It's been really interesting reading about your progress so far - I look forward to many more further installments!
Dude - The card looks good to me. Now you have something to hand out - get professional cards later. I have a suggestion for you photoshop issue - Pixelmator - very similar to Photoshop and only $59 (just until you can afford CS3). I too run a Mac and if you do get one, you have to look at Aperture. I have been using it for a year and the programs rocks - it's even better now that they upgrade it to 2.0.
Good luck and the blog is great!
@Oli-
I have seen that post before, but it's a good reminder. I'm thinking of doing some promoting my work on PhotoShelter once I get my front-end a little better sorted out.
I like your ideas on the business cards, when I get some professionally done I'm strongly considering a minimalist approach. This had to carry over on non-glossy inkjet card stock, however, so I went a little more graphical, because they certainly aren't shiny...
I will try a quick rework in the direction of your suggestions, see how it looks.
@Rick-
Thanks for the kinds words, I'm mostly glad to not be scribbling my email and phone on little pieces of paper here and there!
Regarding Aperture, I really wish I didn't have to make that decision right now, but my trial of LR turns into a pumpkin tomorrow and I've got to buy it, it's made too much of an improvement in my workflow to drop it now. I will definitely revisit this once I'm up to speed on the Mac. 13 days and counting...
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